Just Desserts
by kaiju62
Summary: My very first piece ever was "He's Outta Here", Nora beating up on Cardin. I seem to publish these types of oneshots rather frequently so, at the suggestion of the ever noble Dongyrn, I have decided to compile all past and future someone beating up Cardin for being a bully stories into one piece so people can better follow them and such. Thanks so much for reading!
1. He's Outta Here

**Disclaimer: RWBY and all affiliated characters/titles belong to Rooster Teeth, those wonderful geniuses.**

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Beacon Academy was a school meant to train some of the finest and proudest warriors on Remnant into Huntsmen and Huntresses capable of defending civilization from the terrors that were bearing down on it every day. The Grimm, natural disaster, crime, corruption and cruelty were all things they had to train to be ready for and most did an amicable job of it. Headmaster Ozpin differed from the Headmasters at some of the other academies in that he was willing to let a lot slide, and even allowed his personal judgement to override school rules and regulations, even laws, when he saw fit. The Headmaster for example, was fully aware that Jaune Arc had not attended a lower level academy before coming here, he had not passed the entrance exams necessary to gain a spot at Beacon and he did not even know how to fully utilize his aura. However, he had allowed the boy into the school because he knew that with the right stimulation and training he could become a true force to reckon with on any battlefield.

The Headmaster also allowed his highly ranked students a little more free reign in terms of combat style or recreation time. If they were performing and scoring at the top of the class at Beacon, then they deserved a little wiggle room he felt, and he was happy to give it to them. He could not however, tolerate any sort of unordained combat on campus and it was this fact that struck him as he entered the courtyard to see Cardin Winchester, a low ranked brute of a boy and Nora Valkyrie, a stunningly talented firecracker with a penchant for heavy weapons, squaring up to each other. What was that boy thinking?

The boy had his mace out and over his shoulder, he was lauding about as if he owned the place, throwing insults at the little redhead and swinging his mace about in the air as he spoke like some sort of orator. Nora on the other hand was steaming, pulling at her two male teammates who were desperately trying to hold her back.

"Seriously, you can't control yourself. Do you have ADHD or something?" Cardin turned to her, a devilish grin on his face. He was getting to her and he loved it. Headmaster Ozpin stood his ground at the corner of the building, he leaned against the wall and gripped his cane tightly by the head. If the boy was going to dig his own grave then he may as well let him, it would be interesting to see how this played out.

"Lemme go Ren. I'm gonna crush him!" Nora was struggling against her teammates, pulling hard at them as they restrained her. Each was holding one of her shoulders, forcing her back and away from her insulter.

"He's not worth it Nora. You're gonna get in trouble again." Jaune her team leader was trying his best to hold his composure but even he was growing upset with the insults Cardin was throwing at his teammate.

"Yeah little girl, hide behind your leader and your boyfriend. I'm sure the mighty Jauney boy will protect you." Cardin laughed as he saw Jaune's shoulders slump. Ozpin chuckled lightly to himself watching the scene unfold, it was true Cardin was far superior to Jaune in combat now but the blonde boy had been excelling quickly and had far more potential than the already tapped out mace wielder could ever imagine.

"What? Not gonna say anything China man? Do you even know how to talk? I bet you're as retarded as she is!" Ozpin sighed at Cardin's last outburst, that was too far for Nora.

With a yell that would have terrified an Ursa Major, Nora ripped free of her teammates and charged her attacker. He stumbled backwards a step, startled that she had escaped her friends and attempted to ready his mace but she was on him already. The little redhead grabbed him by the throat and lifted him, armor, mace and all off the ground with one hand. She reared back a fist and glared daggers at him.

"Don't you say a word about my friends or I will-"

"Ms. Valkyrie, Mr. Winchester I believe that is quite enough." Ozpin was standing amongst the group before any of them had even noticed him enter the courtyard. He was standing calmly, both hands resting on his cane and asserting an irrefutable authority over everything around him. Jaune and Ren both snapped to attention standing straight, Nora dropped Cardin to the ground and turned abashedly to the Headmaster.

"Sorry Professor. I'll go to detention with Professor Goodwitch." Nora glumly dropped her head and began to shuffle off.

"That won't be necessary Ms. Valkyrie. I heard what was occurring and I believe you both are at fault here. Therefore, I wish to give you the chance to settle it like the Huntsmen and Huntresses you are striving to become." Cardin picked himself up from the ground and Nora turned to regard the Headmaster with suspicion.

The Vytal Festival hosted a large arena meant for team combat and was able to transform to replicate various biomes and combat environments for the sake of the combatants. The flying stadium was an achievement accomplished only through the collaboration of the four nations and required thousands of man hours and a permanent crew to maintain. It was a sight to behold and cost an extraordinary amount of Lien to keep in the air. It was therefore restricted for use only for the Vytal Festival and even Ozpin's clout couldn't gain him access for a settling of disputes between students.

Instead the students now found themselves in one of the many combat ready classrooms on campus. The auditorium had high vaulted ceilings to allow for aerial maneuvers and large ornate windows which permitted sun and moonlight to filter in. Ozpin had always preferred as much natural lighting as possible and extended his influence to the entire school's architecture. The room had high stadium seating along one side and a raised observation platform at the other from which professors and other guests could view the combat. Above this platform was a large screen which displayed the combatants' aura levels as horizontal bar graphs next to simple images of their face.

Ozpin was seated in the stadium seats alongside Jaune and Ren waiting for Nora to emerge from the locker rooms with her combat gear. Cardin was pacing the floor nervously, confronting Nora when she was unarmed and in her school uniform was one thing. Squaring up with her here, in the ring, in full combat gear and armed to the teeth with her hammer grenade launcher combo _Magnhild_ was a completely different one.

Nora stepped out of the locker room doors wearing her white top and pink combat skirt, _Magnhild_ slung easily over her shoulder and huge grin plastered across her face.

"Now Ms. Valkyrie. This is a duel meant to settle a personal conflict, for that reason I would ask that you do not use dust rounds. Ranged combat is immensely impersonal and carries no emotion." With that Headmaster Ozpin tapped his staff on the floor and the battle was on. Nora and Cardin's aura meters appeared on the screen, full and green.

Cardin charged in with reckless abandon, swinging his mace about behind him and bellowing a powerful battle cry. Nora smiled and met his first strike evenly with the head of _Magnhild_. The resulting clang sounded off the walls of the room. Cardin did not slow his assault, bring his mace around time and again to meet Nora's hammer. He moved with admitted grace for wielding such a large weapon but Nora met him every time. With each blow Nora retreated a step, getting closer and closer to the arena wall until she was only a few feet away.

Her opponent brought the mace above his head and down with both hands, intending to crush Nora between the wall and his weapon. She hopped backwards, planting her feet against the wall and leaped over Cardin, placing a foot on his mace to launch herself even further. She did a neat flip high above his head and brought her hammer down hard on the ground behind him. The floor split and cracked, one large slab under Cardin buckled and kicked upward launching him into the air.

Nora fired off a single charge, pushing her hammer free of the floor and performed a tight backflip, letting the momentum carry her onto her feet again. Cardin had reached the peak of his arc and was careening back towards the floor. Nora brought the hammer back behind her and stuck her tongue out slightly between her lips, concentrating hard. She swung as her opponent fell in front of her and caught him square in the midsection before he could plant his feet. The force of the blow sent him careening out one of the upper windows and the sound of shattering glass was accompanied by a quite unmanly scream as the boy sailed through the air.

Jaune and Ren looked up to the aura meters and saw Cardin still had enough left that the battle was not technically over. Ozpin smiled and Nora rested _Magnhild_ on her shoulder. A second or two passed and there was another distinct drop in Cardin's aura meter, putting him into the red and ending the match.

"Oh wow. He got more hang time than I thought." Nora laughed obnoxiously and regarded their Headmaster as he spoke.

"Well, I suppose I will have to inform Glynda of what happened." Jaune and Ren turned to the man with shock.

"But Headmaster, I thought you said-" Jaune started but cut himself short when Ozpin pointed at the high window.

"Someone has to fix that window after all."

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 **A/N - So, this was the first piece I ever published and actually is a chunk I ended up removing from my longer piece** "Friends and Loved Ones" **where originally Cardin and Nora fought in Goodwitch's sparring class. It didn't quite fit there but I couldn't just let it go so I wrote this. If you would like to see the original story (though it's exactly the same as this one) then please check out** "He's Outta Here" **which I will be leaving up as a little piece of my personal authorial history.**

 **I've decided to compile all of my "Some character beats up Cardin" stories into one big thing. I noticed I had a lot of people following the smaller stories and I appreciated the gesture but seeing as they would never be updated I felt bad. So I will leave this up as a constant stream of all my, "Some character beats up Cardin" type stories.**

 **I don't know how many more I'll write. Maybe none. Maybe one for every character. I really have no idea. But if I do, this is where you'll find them.**

 **Thanks so much for reading.**

 **-Zach**


	2. Ice Block

**Disclaimer: RWBY and all affiliated characters/titles belong to Rooster Teeth, those wonderful geniuses.**

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"Hey pipsqueak." Cardin's voice was heavy with rude sarcasm, "Shouldn't you be off playing with dolls or coloring or something?" He plopped down on the workbench next to Ruby and rested his dense head on his big meaty paw.

"I'm not in the mood Cardin. Leave me alone." Ruby didn't look up from her work on a new dust receptacle for _Crescent Rose_. She really liked how Weiss's _Myrtenaster_ could roll through so many different types of dust and decided that her mighty sweet heart could do with a similar function.

"Aww, have you not had your nap yet? It must be hard staying up all day with the big kids." Cardin let his voice get all high pitched and squeaky, like he was talking to a child. Ruby felt her arms tense in frustration. She was not in the mood to sit here and deal with him and after that incident last week when she had blown a full canister of red dust up because she was trying to compress it, well she wasn't really supposed to even be using the workshops until they finished repairs.

"I told you to leave me alone Cardin." Ruby dropped her screwdriver to the table and turned on him, silver eyes boiling with frustration. "Or I'm gonna compress another round of red dust up your-"

"Ruby Rose." The slow demanding voice of Professor Glynda Goodwitch sounded from Ruby's opposite side. "I do believe your access here was restricted ever since your last," she cleared her throat " _experiment,_ didn't go exactly as planned." Ruby turned from her tormentor to the professor who was standing, arms crossed and leg forward, ready to dish out a detention.

"I'm sorry Professor. I'll head back to my dorm to finish." Ruby began to collect her things but felt the new revolving cylinder pulled from her grip by an incredibly powerful force and watched helplessly as her weapon's newest modification floated over to the Professor's waiting hands.

"The last thing we need is you blowing the dorm building up as well." Professor Goodwitch pocketed the device, "I believe you can do without that for the next week or so." With her point made Professor Goodwitch stomped away, the clacking of her heels resounding off the walls of the workshop, somehow louder than the hammers and drills of the students.

"Aww she took your toy away. You're not gonna cry are you?" Cardin waited until the professor had exited ear-shot to continue his harassment. Ruby was so flustered by his presence, and her not being allowed to make _Crescent Rose_ even more amazing, that she just shoved the rest of her tools in her bag and stormed out of the room. She thought for sure that she was free of him and could treat herself to a big box of cookies back in her room to ease some of this stress away but heard big boots and clanking armor come storming up behind her as she exited the building. "Come on. It's okay. I'm sure you can find something else to play with right? Maybe some blocks or a bouncy ball?"

Cardin had moved out in front of her and was walking backwards so he could see her frustrated grimace. Ruby had had just about enough of this nonsense and was letting her aura pool in her feet as she walked, preparing to launch her semblance powered self directly at his chest and bowl the stupid boy over. But then, he tripped, falling backwards and flailing his arms through the air as he went tumbling to the ground on his big, foolish rear end.

"Cardin, will you ever grow up?" A perfectly even and somehow still snarky voice asked. Ruby glanced up from the befuddled fool on the ground to her pristine savior, Weiss Schnee. "I mean honestly. How do you ever expect to fight Grimm if you can't even walk across the quad without falling all over yourself?"

"Don't even start with me Schnee." Cardin tried to stand and salvage what was left of his dignity, brushing himself off and straightening his oversized armor against his chest. "I'm not here to play with some pampered little daddy's girl, alright."

"Oh I'm not here to play." Weiss crossed her arms and stepped to Ruby's side, "Not that you could keep up even if I was."

"Listen you little-" Cardin began his retort but Weiss shoved her finger directly in his face and cut him off.

"You're what, third from the bottom in the combat rankings? And I mean the two beneath you are both on your team aren't they? You're the leader but even Russel is ranked better than you. It's really quite sad." Weiss's voice was dripping with derision and Ruby snickered under her breath, no one could stand up to one her tirades.

"Well, that doesn't mean that- He knows I could beat him in a fight." Cardin stumbled as he was faced with the hard facts of his own inadequacy.

"You're whole team is a joke really. Ever since you got your poor, pathetic little butt handed to you by _Jaune Arc_ of all people, you've really been headed even further down hill." Weiss jabbed her long, delicate finger in his face once more and then crossed her arms back across her chest. "You're whole team got thrown all around the arena by Pyrrha. And she was alone." Weiss let out a short bark of laughter.

"Okay, we weren't gonna hurt the poor girl. It wasn't fair of the professor to make it four on one so I told the boys to go easy on her." Cardin tried to verbally back pedal as quickly as he could, hopelessly covering his and his team's pride.

"So you what? Came here to pick on a girl? A younger girl even?" Weiss turned and gave Ruby a quick smile, "She's in two years early for a reason. You realize that right? She can already fight better than you and she never even graduated combat school." Ruby's smile hit both her ears at the praise but she stayed silent, perfectly willing to let her partner handle this one. Weiss was so good at this and Ruby was reminded how glad she was that they were friends now.

"Agghhh you know what? You little-!" Cardin clenched both his fists at his sides, having completely run through his list of pitiful comebacks. He charged at Weiss with a bellow, fist raised behind him.

Weiss didn't even draw _Myrtenaster_ to throw her glyph, not needing the focus her aura that directly to deal with the boy's reckless charge. She put a black glyph at his feet, rooting him to the spot and laughed as his punch hit air. Several other students in the area stopped and laughed as Cardin struggled against the strength of the glyph. He was screaming and bellowing obscenities at the heiress, really just making a bigger scene out of the whole thing than Weiss had intended. But, he was just drawing an audience to his own humiliation.

"Resorting to violence? Cardin. I'm so disappointed in you. You had been doing so much better with your words lately. You were even making whole sentences until the end there." Weiss wagged her finger back and forth through the air, making a tsking noise incredibly similar to Professor Goodwitch's.

Weiss stepped past Cardin towards the nearest building and drug her hand through the air behind her, pulling the glyph along the ground and Cardin right along with it until they reached the wall. She cast her other hand out and up the wall's length, throwing a series of glyphs along it's surface. Ruby followed behind, impressed that Weiss's semblance control had gotten so much better lately. Then Weiss released the glyph holding Cardin to the ground and smiled at Ruby. The lumbering block head hesitated as he regained his footing but Ruby did not and gave him just hard enough of a push to shove him against the wall and Weiss's other glyph. He stuck fast despite his flailing attempts to free himself.

A wave of Weiss's hand sent Cardin tumbling up along the wall. She used the next glyph in the series to pull him higher and higher, each glyph disappearing behind him as the next one took hold. Finally he reached the top of the three story structure and his screams were much less audible than when he had been right next to Ruby.

"How long are you gonna hold him up there?" Ruby turned to Weiss, "I mean, he's not really worth standing here all afternoon, is he?" Several students laughed openly and pointed at Cardin as he dangled from the side of the building.

"Oh no, definitely not." Weiss laughed and drew _Myrtenaster_ with her free hand and pointed it up at the boy who was still bellowing out fear and curse words. Promising to make the two pay for this as soon as he got down. Weiss whipped her blade quickly through the air and sent a wave of dust at him that froze hard on impact, encasing his lower body and torso in a thick shell of dust powered ice that would not melt for some time. Weiss let her other hand fall and sheathed her rapier, confident that Cardin was stuck fast.

"Oooh that's a good one Weiss." Ruby clapped her hands together in happiness. The gathered students threw a few final jeers at the well known bully and then began to disperse, bored that now that the action seemed to be over.

"Yeah well, I thought he needed to _cool off_." Weiss turned to Ruby and arched her eyebrows.

"No Weiss. Just… Just no." Ruby shook her head with a smile and skipped off towards her dorm and the promise of cookies.

"What? That was a good one!" Weiss called after Ruby, "Come on, I heard Yang use it just the other day." Weiss stomped her foot and crossed her arms in a pout. Well that was the last time she helped her out of the kindness of her heart.

Weiss flicked the hair of her ponytail off her shoulder and over her back in frustration before strutting off after her team leader.

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 **A/N - Ahh Weiss. Poor, poor Weiss.**

 **This was a fun one wasn't it? I wrote this one for a reader who was a little bummed out by the events of** "Friends and Loved Ones" **or was it** "Clubbin' " **I really can't remember at this point. What I do know is that they were a WhiteRose fan and so they got this.**

 **Hope you enjoyed it!**

 **-Zach**


	3. Untethered

**Disclaimer: RWBY and all affiliated characters/titles belong to Rooster Teeth, those wonderful geniuses.**

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"Okay, okay, stop. I still don't understand Jaune." Nora pulled herself up from a fit of laughter, "Where did you even get a dress at that time of night?" She at steeped in anticipation, waiting for Jaune's answer. Pyrrha wiped a tear of laughter from her own cheek and looked on, as curious as the others to how Jaune had brought such a hilarious end to their evening. Even Ren seemed eager to know, though he didn't let any real hint of it cross his face. They could tell though. His team had learned how to decipher Ren's little signals almost as well as Nora by now.

"Well, it wasn't really…" Jaune faltered in his explanation, rubbing at the back of his neck abashedly as a light red spread across his cheeks. In the heat of the moment he had felt zero shame in wearing the dress. He was completing a promise for Pyrrha and she needed him to be there for her. She had been there so many times for him, it was literally the least he could do and retain any of his pride at all. Funny, he never thought wearing a dress in public would be the only way to maintain his pride. What would his sisters say?

"It was someone else's, someone who didn't end up going to the dance." Jaune looked away, his embarrassment growing as he was certain they would pursue the question further, or at least that Nora would.

Nora laughed heartily and Jaune breathed a sigh of relief, hoping that maybe she would let it slide. Ren chuckled quietly, his mouth never opening but Jaune hadn't been worried he would push the question. Pyrrha… Pyrrha wasn't laughing at all. Her eyes had gone wide and she was staring intensely at him.

"Pyrrha…"

"Who's dress did you borrow Jaune?" Her eyes were glued to him, unwavering, unblinking.

"Uhh…" He had been embarrassed before but now he was scared. "Co-co's…Her whole team decided against going since it was mostly Freshman." Jaune tried to chuckle disarmingly because that seemed to work with Pyrrha.

"Are you kidding? You got to wear Coco's dress?" Nora nearly fell out of her seat in shock. "Jaune, you were probably wearing the most expensive dress there."

"Let's not forget that Weiss was in attendance." Ren smiled broadly from his seat, content in his small jest at their friend's expense.

"Okay Ren, that doesn't even count though. She doesn't even look at price tags or anything." Nora began to rant and rave about how Coco's taste far exceeded Weiss wasteful opulence, though not quite in those words. Jaune reverted his gaze back to his partner and… friend? That was still the right word right?

"Well I'm glad you found a way to make it work on such short notice." Pyrrha's stern visage broke into an easy, authentic smile and she moved one hand to Jaune's forearm. "I wouldn't have had the night go any other way."

Jaune's shoulder fell as his tension rolled away. That had gone a lot better than it could have. He started to laugh lightly as Nora's rant came to a close centered on Weiss's need to buy silk sock to go with her uniform and not just wear the school provided ones like everyone else.

"Maybe she just buys them because she isn't a poor little street rat." All four heads swung to the side to see who would possibly tempt Nora's anger. They weren't surprised at all to find Cardin Winchester just a few steps away, arms crossed and smug smile plastered across his face. It was a little jarring though to see that he had brought his entire team with him as back up. After the thrashing Nora gave him last time it wasn't surprising.

Then it became clear what was different this time. Team JNPR were in their school uniforms but Team CRDL was armed and armored, that would make a distinct difference if any sort of confrontation broke out. It still wouldn't be enough to change the outcome, but it certainly gave them confidence in themselves.

Ren immediately moved his hand to Nora's shoulder. Both to comfort her from the insult Cardin had just thrown her way and to keep her from leaping out of her seat and pummeling the other ginger into the ground. To his surprise it wasn't Nora who stood in immediate defiance.

"Walk away Cardin. We're not in the mood." Jaune stood from the bench and squared his shoulders. He stood taller now than he had recently. He had grown.

"Shut it Arc. I'm not gonna listen to a cross-dressing chump like you." Cardin stepped forward menacingly and to his credit Jaune did not back down. Pyrrha still stood supportively behind him.

"You need to stop. Remember what happened last time?" Pyrrha glared dangerously at him and whether she was referring to Nora and Cardin's impromptu sparring session or the repeated defeats he had faced at Pyrrha's incredibly talented hands, it wasn't clear. Either way, the message made its way through to his team.

Russel, Dove and Sky all backed down a step, but Cardin refused to take the hint.

"No, no, no. That won't be happening anymore." The overconfident boy placed a meaty hand on the hilt of his mace. "Sparring sessions are different from real combat. There's no rules out here." He grinned menacingly and Jaune shuddered to think what he meant, they didn't really follow any rules in combat classes.

"I swear to Oum, I'll tear your-"

"Nora." Ren cut her off with incredible calm. "It's alright. He won't try anything. He knows he's severely outclassed." Nora's shoulders dropped sadly, deprived of the opportunity to bloody her knuckles.

"I'm definitely not outclassed here. Your leaders a third rate liar and you two are a bunch of homeless orphans. I bet you wouldn't even have any friends here if it weren't for your team. Riding on Pyrrha's coattails must be nice since all you've ever done is beg before you got here." Cardin glanced around at his team in askance, waiting for cheers and jeers to support him. They were all several paces behind him now though, trying their best to look as uninvolved as possible.

Ren had to press down forcibly on Nora's shoulder to stop her from lunging out. If she hadn't been seated when this all started he probably wouldn't have been able to hold her back. Luckily for Cardin he was able to restrain her still.

"Come on Cardin, back off. Look, even your team knows you're being an idiot." Jaune spared a glance to his two teammates, aware how deep those words must have cut. "Just stop before this gets any uglier."

"It can't get any uglier Arc. Those two are still here." Cardin laughed uproariously at his own poor humor. The noise and his bluster seemed to reinvigorate his team and Dove even let out a derisive chuckle. "No one's going to be nice to you just because you don't have parents. Whatever happened to them should have got you too and spared us all the trouble."

Ren's shoulders tensed.

"Nora. Promise me you won't get up."

"But Re-"

"No Nora. I need you to promise me."

"Okay Ren. But you owe me." She poked him on the forehead and Ren let a small smile creep across his lips.

"I'll make us some pancakes over the weekend." He lifted his hand from her shoulder and faced Cardin.

The aggressive boy stood more than a few inches higher than Ren but seemed to shrink in the face of his unwavering confidence. Ren paced slowly across the small gap between them and came well within arm's reach. The rest of Team CRDL found their courage at last and stepped in behind their leader. This is why they'd come.

"I'll give you one last chance to walk away." Ren leaned to the side to glance at the rest of the team, "All of you."

"Ren, you don't need to-" Ren cut Jaune off with an upraised hand, his eyes never left his opponents.

"I'm not going anywhere. What are you gonna do about it?" Cardin loomed over Ren, bearing down on him with every ounce of bravado he could muster.

Ren closed his eyes, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

"See, no one ever taught him how to be a man. That's a dad's-" The last word died in Cardin's throat as his teeth smashed together.

Ren lurched forward, one palm raised directly into Cardin's chin and the other grasping the handle of his mace. Before Cardin could wrap his mind around what was happening Ren spun in a tight circle, jerking the mace free and tossing it well out of reach. His free hand remained open and smacked against Cardin's chest plate, sending him backwards several feet. Dove and Russel charged in, weapons at the ready.

Ren moved without hesitation. He slid inside Russel's guard with a sweeping stance change that put his back to the attacker's midsection. Ren forced his shoulder under the other boy's armpit, grasped his arm with both hands and sent him flying over his shoulder at Dove. The two crashed into each other, daggers and swords skittering away across the cobblestones.

An apparent sixth sense warned Ren of Sky's attack from behind as the boy's huge double handed ax came plummeting down. Ren fell to his knees, twisted around and caught the ax blade on a shimmering disk of pure aura. Sky strained against it but didn't even manage to buckle Ren's elbows. With a twist of his wrists Ren sent the ax head veering off to the side and caught Sky's chin on his outstretched palm, the full force of the reckless attack reversing itself on Sky. He fell backwards as his ax continued forward and lodged itself in the ground.

Ren rose to his feet slowly and faced Cardin who was still stumbling to his feet, disoriented by the initial attack less than a second ago.

"I suggest you turn around before I'm obliged to continue." Ren said calmly, not a trace of malice or anger anywhere on his face.

"You're not getting off that easy." Cardin charged forward, fist raised high in a wild attempt to strike at Ren.

He waited until his foe was nearly upon him before stepping blithely to the side. One hand darted out to grab Cardin's offending wrist and the other snaked around his waist to redirect his force into a nearby lamp post. Ren had had far too much though and decided that instead of his fist making contact with the metal post, his head would serve much more appropriately. Cardin's face smacked against the black iron with a resounding clang and he stumbled backwards before falling firmly on his backside.

"I believe we're done here." Ren stood from his slightly crouched stance and straightened his uniform.

"Ooh Renny, that was so cool." Nora lunged up from her seat, which she had loyally maintained through the moments long confrontation, and threw her arms around Ren's neck. He smiled slightly and gave her a brief squeeze around the shoulders.

"That was very impressive Ren." Pyrrha glanced around at the dispatched team. "They may be blusterous, but they certainly aren't pushovers. Well done."

"Oh come on. Really?" Jaune looked back and forth between the discarded boys and his only male teammate. "Why do you have to be so cool man? 'I believe we're done here' What?" Jaune mocked Ren in exasperation and sighed again.

"I'm sorry Jaune." Ren disentangled himself from Nora, "I know I usually try to control myself but some of the things he said could not be ignored."

"You're plenty cool Jaune." Pyrrha reassured him.

"Yeah," Nora chuckled, "Like those team attacks you came up with."

"Like Flour Storm. It makes sense because Ren likes to bake so much." Pyrrha chimed in happily.

"What? No that's not…" Jaune's head fell again and he trudged off towards the dorms. "It's fine. I get it. Ren's just super cool. It's no big deal."

Pyrrha trotted off after him, continually trying to offer words of encouragement, baseless as they were.

Ren and Nora followed slowly behind.

"That was really cool of you Ren." Nora leaned in close, "Thank you."

"Of course Nora." Ren stopped and gave her a brief smile. Nora pressed her hands together and pursed her lips, contemplating her next words carefully.

"I know Nora, I know." Ren closed his eyes happily and poked his finger gently against her forehead. "Boop."

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 **A/N -** **This was actually a story for the wonderful** Hadrumlo **that I promised to write quite some time ago.** Hadrumlo **is a great reader who has followed with me quite closely and PMed back and forth about several of my works. I asked if there were any preferred ships or anything but they preferred a story about Cardin getting his just desserts and Ren needs his time to shine too.**

 **Sorry if the combat was maybe a little hard to follow here. I tried my best to describe several judo techniques as well as I could without using technical language and maintaining the pacing of the scene. Plus, I feel like the aura shield thing is just one of Ren's trademarks (even if he only did it once).**

 **This was the last of the someone beating up Cardin pieces to get it's own story. After this all others will be placed in this story as chapters. I hope you enjoyed.**

 **Per usual, I can't wait to hear what you all think. Really, even a simple "I liked it" or "I hated it" is really appreciated. Hearing back from you is the best way for me to grow as a writer.**

 **Thanks so much for reading.**

 **-Zach**


	4. The Great Wave

**Disclaimer: RWBY and all affiliated characters/titles belong to Rooster Teeth, those wonderful geniuses.**

* * *

"Are you gonna get up and do something?" Neptune picked a banana peel off of Sun's arm and nonchalantly threw it into a trashcan behind him.

"Nah man I can't." Sun wiped some of the offensive material off his arm and grimaced. Some punk named Cardin Winchester, apparently Beacon's resident bully and idiot, had been harassing him, throwing things and calling him out for his Faunus heritage. The banana was his most recent attempt at combining both annoyances into one.

"Why not?" Neptune leaned casually over to look past Sun's shoulder and size the boy up. "You can take that guy easy. Heck, I think one of your light clones could take him on and you wouldn't even have to get up."

"That's not the point man. I'd love to go smash his head in. You know that." Sun sighed despondently and ducked as another banana peel came sailing his way. Did the Professors here not do anything to stop this kind of thing? They were in the cafeteria for crying out loud.

"Alright… I'm not getting it." Neptune sat up straight, trying to figure out what could possibly be stopping his impulsive buddy from jumping over the few tables between them and this kid and showing him what's what.

Sun jerked his chin over towards the other side of the room. Neptune followed the gesture without question and found his eyes landing on their favorite group of Beacon Huntresses, Team RWBY. Blake Belladonna, arguably the second prettiest girl at Beacon after the incredible, untouchably gorgeous Weiss Schnee, was sitting with the rest of her team as they enjoyed their lunch.

"Ahh, I see." Neptune sighed in understanding.

"Faunus freak." Cardin hollered over at them, "No good foriegn monkey boy." Apparently he was short of bananas for now and had reverted back to verbal insults.

"She's always going on and on about how we need to respond with kindness and not violence to people like this. She says that if we just attack people for stuff like this then all we're doing is proving them right and perpetuating the stereotypes we're fighting or something." Sun groaned and let his head fall on folded arms on the table. "All I know is, I'm not supposed to fight him. Blake doesn't like it."

"Aww man, you've got it bad don't you?" Neptune laughed and ruffled Sun's hair.

"Me?" Sun's voice cracked slightly as he shot up and glared at his pal. "You're one to talk. It's sooo cool of you to follow after Weiss all the time and hang on her every word like you do."

"Hey, that's different. She's an Heiress. Getting on her good side is going to require a special, delicate touch."

Sun laughed out loud.

"Oh man, good luck with that." he continued laughing until a coconut came sailing across the room and hit him hard enough for his aura to flare up at the contact.

"You have to admit," Neptune lifted the coconut as Sun rubbed the back of his head, "They have a really well stocked cafe. I even saw swordfish the other day."

"Oh yeah. It's the best." Sun drawled sarcastically and got up from his seat. "Come on man, let's get out of here. I don't feel like dealing with this right now."

"What? No, you can't just walk away like that." Neptune glanced back at Team RWBY who were happily chatting away with each other and then back to his friend. Neptune stood before Sun could and put a hand on his shoulder. "I'll go talk to him okay? Yeah."

Neptune clenched his fist in determination and turned to approach Cardin. This was gonna be great, he could stand up for Sun, make a big heroic scene in front of Weiss and get this idiot to stop harassing Faunus all at the same time. It was perfect and all it would take were a few well placed words.

He reached the small group of four boys, Cardin and who Neptune could only assume were his team. CRDN, CRDL, something like that. Neptune smiled to himself, SSSN was so easy to remember. They were laughing uproariously amongst themselves and didn't even notice his approach. He cleared his throat loudly to get their attention.

Cardin wiped a tear of laughter from his eye and turned to face Neptune. It took him a second to realize who he was but then Cardin straightened right up, leveling his eyes with Neptune's.

"What do you want?" Cardin crossed his arms and his team stood behind him defensively.

"Hey man, listen. I just came over here to say that what you're doing really isn't cool." Neptune put his hands on his hips, wanting to stay firm but not aggressive.

"Oh yeah? It's not very _cool_?" The ginger boy through air quotes around the word cool and mocked Neptune's voice. His little groupies laughed. "Well tough. I don't care what you think is cool."

"C'mon just give it a rest already. We're just trying to eat our lunch so why don't you just eat yours and we can all go about our day. Sound good?" Neptune flashed his most winning smile, hoping the other boy would just drop it.

"No, that does not sound good." Cardin poked a finger in Neptune's chest. "I can't just let it lie when I have to share the cafeteria with a dirty monkey."

Neptune sighed and glanced back at Sun. He was watching from his seat at the table, clearly repressing the urge to jump in and take the matter into his own hands. Neptune couldn't let that happen. It would jeopardize his whole heroic moment thing and more importantly it would probably ruin Sun's chances with Blake.

"Alright, I was trying to be nice. But you really better stop, or else." Neptune tried to look as intimidating as possible. He knew it wouldn't do much. He wasn't a very scary looking guy. This idiot Cardin would be no match for him in a fight but he was certainly was sure of himself.

"Or else what? You and monkey boy gonna try something. I'm not scared of you. You're just a couple no good Mistralians. I don't have to listen to you." Cardin and his boys laughed, apparently pleased with the use of Mistralian as an insult.

"No, no, _we_ aren't gonna _try_ anything. _I_ am going to teach you how to respect people." Neptune lowered his hands back to his hips. He had an idea here that just might work.

They were drawing quite a little crowd now and Neptune realized that the staff here might not be quite lax enough to ignore something like this and he wasn't really here to get in trouble. He'd have to make this quick.

"Oh you are, are you?" Cardin laughed but it sounded more like a yell. Neptune wasn't quite sure what he was trying to accomplish with that. All it really did was draw more attention to them. At least Neptune could be pretty sure that Weiss was watching now and Blake would see that Sun had sat by and been passive or whatever. Great. Now he just couldn't mess up.

Cardin reared back to throw a punch at Neptune, but that was the last move he got to make. Neptune stepped under his guard, spun his back to Cardin and dropped an elbow in the other boy's gut. Cardin doubled over, falling over Neptune's back and he kindly obliged sweeping one foot out and sending the bully tumbling over his shoulder to the floor. That hadn't taken long.

Cardin landed face first on the tile floor. There were several snickers from the crowd, laughing at how badly Cardin had just been floored. Neptune smirked and decided this would make his plan work perfectly.

He fell forward and planted his knee right between Cardin's shoulder blades, pinning him to the ground. Cardin struggled against him and nearly threw Neptune to the ground as well but he managed to stay upright.

"Wow there, we can't be having that now can we?" Neptune laughed in good spirits and the little crowd laughed right along. Neptune grabbed Cardin's arm and twisted it behind his back, holding him in place. "Now, I need you to apologize to my friend here." He pointed to Sun who had stood and walked over to watch what was happening.

"Screw you." Cardin groaned from the ground.

"No, no, that's not quite it. It's starts with 'I'm sorry' and ends with Sun's name. Go ahead try again." Neptune kept a firm grip on his arm, but didn't twist or apply pressure to hurt him. There was no point to this if he was just hurting Cardin back.

Cardin grunted and refused to look at Sun.

"Come on now. It's not that hard. Just three words really. Then I'll let you up and you can go back to lunch with your team."

"I'm sorry Sun." Cardin nearly whispered through gritted teeth. Neptune sighed happily and got off the boy immediately. He even leaned over and offered Cardin a hand up.

"See, that wasn't that bad was it?" He leaned over and offered Cardin a hand up with a smile.

Cardin slapped his hand away and stood without assistance, returning quickly to his team. He never even spared the two boys another look. The small crowd dispersed as there wasn't going to be any real action and went back to their lunches.

"Well, that was interesting." Neptune laughed and dusted off his knees.

"Hey thanks man." Sun clapped him on the back, "I know it wasn't really beating him up, but still, thanks."

"No problem man." Neptune smiled back, "Now come on. Let's go see if the girls saw." They both laughed together and ran over to Team RWBY's table.

* * *

 **A/N -** **Hey, so yeah I've decided to restructure these just a little bit. I never planned on having so many of these (I know four isn't a lot but it's four times as many as I thought I'd have) so I've decided to slip them all into this one story. I'm gonna leave the three that are already up, up because why not but any future stories like these will go in here as chapters to** Just Desserts **.**

 **On the note of Cardin being a character worth developing more and not just a stupid, flat bully character. I get this concern a lot and I completely agree but I have two points of contention. One, that isn't the point of these stories. These are here for people to see their personal favorite character get to win against Cardin and maybe make a point about bullying being wrong at the same time. Two, if Cardin were to get his own redemption arc then it would happen in a separate story, not this one.**

 **I really hope you enjoyed the piece. This chapter in particular was for user** Daisy Rhine **who read all the other beat up Cardin stories I've written and reviewed them in one go. They liked the others so much that I offered to make one just for them.**

 **I know this particular piece wasn't as action packed as they usually are but Neptune seemed more like a talk it out kind of guy than the others. He still definitely humiliated Cardin though right? Yeah, I think so at least.**

 **Thanks so much for reading.**

 **-Zach**


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